Excerpt from The Present Land-Tax in India Considered A point of the utmost importance, and which will be considered in the sequel of our enquiry. Such are the conflicting sentiments regarding the proprietary right in the soil. Before proceeding farther, however, it seems quite requisite to deter mine what particular qualities constitute the right in landed property. A very eminent lawyer* has stated that, by the English law no subject can hold land in direct or allodial dominion that is to say, the owner of the land must pay homage to the sovereign or his representative, either by the actual or implied performance of some personal service, or by the payment of a portion of the pro duce. In England this peculiarity of landed tenures belongs to the feudal system, by which the whole land of the kingdom was partitioned out among the military chiefs who followed the Conqueror; and it is in conformity with this system, that every spot of ground is supposed to belong to some feu. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.